Nobody's Daughter
by eden alice
Summary: A Jac story continuing from the episode What Goes Around.
1. Chapter 1

Nobody's Daughter

All hospitals were based around the same design but Joseph felt uncomfortably alien walking corridors that did not belong to Holby General. At some undefined moment in time his place of work had become more of a home than the place he slept. But he would obsess over identifying the exact moment that had happened at a later hour, or an earlier hour as a glance at his watch confirmed it was already past midnight.

He had been stopped at a nurse's station and thoroughly interrogated. On informing the willowy, dark woman his identity and his reason for visiting she had rolled her eyes and murmured something about 'how of course there are more of you'.

Joseph had found himself stuttering over an apology and tried not to cringe internally at just how ingrained his good manners were. After informing the sceptical woman that he was not part of an invasion she had pointed him in the direction to a private room in a secluded corner of the ward.

The walk to the closed door had taken only a few minuets but it was still enough time for him to fret. He took a deep breath studying the scratches and flaws in the wood panelling of the door, absently wondering about the daily tasks that caused the damage. The blinds were drawn so he would have to enter the room to find some sort of peace. It was the same old unshakable connection to a woman he thought he would never be able to forgive that forced him forwards.

He had phoned his allusive colleague regarding the test results of one of Michael's patients, the details now seemed trivial now, to find the Director of Surgery distracted. It had not taken much prompting to get the other man to reveal that he was sitting in a car in Bath of all places waiting to drag Jac Naylor to the nearest hospital before she went into septic shock.

Michael had hung up abruptly and there had been something in the American's tone that told Joseph this was not part of an elaborate joke. The haze of surprise and disbelief had passes slowly. The last he had heard Jac was home recovering from surgery and perhaps rebuilding some sort of relationship with her mother, something that made him feel strangely hopeful. For the rest of his shift all he could think about was the woman he could not seem able to untangle from his life. With a single-mindedness he normally reserved for his work he had made a few more calls and tracked the pair down. And as soon as his shift had ended he jumped in his car and drove.

Only now he questioned his reasons for his visit, if he was wanted. He had not been asked to come, from reading in between the lines Michael had already acted as the knight in shining armour but still he knew he would not rest till he entered the room.

The handle creaked as he pulled it and he suddenly feels awfully loud in the semi quiet and offish. He steps inside the room and shuts the door as smoothly as possible behind himself. Inside he finds Jac pale and asleep surrounded by pink bedding he knew she would hate. Michael sits sprawled on a chair by the bed side, a newspaper loosely gripped in one hand. While he is glad Jac has not been on her own Joseph can not deny the stab of jealousy that the other man had stayed while she slept. Feeling even more redundant he cleared his throat and smoothed a crease in his coat.

Michael's sleep could not have been deep because he jerks awake at the intrusion. The newspaper falls to the floor forgotten and Joseph finds himself apologising again.

"Sorry, I don't mean to intrude. I just…I just wanted to make sure she was okay."


	2. Chapter 2

Michael narrows his eyes and Joseph is sure he almost makes a comment on why he would be so interested in his ex girlfriend. So he is grateful when the other man remains silent because there were so many obvious and loaded things that he was not ready to admit out loud when he can barely comprehend them in the safety of his own head.

Instead the other man frowned and looked down at himself as if he expected to see his fitted and undoubtedly expensive shirt wrinkled and ruined before he remembered he was still wearing scrubs. Michael settled for rearranging the longer strands of his dark hair.

With his eyes remained glued to the sleeping woman, Joseph stepped further into the room and reached for her chart. Needing to find out what had happened in the clinically rigid, abbreviated truth of medicine. It was the one language he confidently understood.

"The surgeon did well, even if she didn't look older than twelve." Michael commented before clearing his throat. He had noticed the tightness in Joseph's knuckles and a small chocked sound escaping his throat that had to be something like shock.

At first Joseph did not reply, the chart still clutched tightly between his fingers while he scanned the sleeping form of his ex. He had not been able to get any details of her condition over the phone and he had struggled to explain his connection to Jac, colleague felt too simple and ex girlfriend did not explain their continued connection. Plus it wouldn't be polite to explain the whole sordid story.

Jac showed no sign of noticing the movement around her bed, remaining perfectly still apart from the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Even when they were together Joseph had never seen her so vulnerable. He had spent so long wishing she'd trip and fall, cutting sarcastic remark dying before it reached her lips and for once he could win. But at that moment in time he had never wanted to hear her voice so much.

She seemed so small and fragile. When they had first met he had been aware of her slimness but her sheer stubborn sense of will and beauty had lent her a strength that he both fed off and was intimidated by. After she had betrayed him the haze of intense bitter hatred he felt towards her made her seem so much larger and powerful. He stopped seeing her as a person for the longest time. And maybe his old feelings had slowly crept back in leading to them spending a drunken night together but it was not till now that he felt as if he was truly seeing her. He could not help but wonder if they could have avoided all the years of pain somehow.

Always having to be neat Joseph placed the chart back where he had found it and suddenly found himself not knowing where to place his empty hands. It would be too much too soon to touch her. Jac had been lucky but still words stuck in his head '_multiple organ failure' _he could shake her for putting her life at such risk.

"How did you…" He faded off before finishing his question.

Michael stood because they were doctors not visiting friends or family. It was easier that way. "She phoned me."

There was that odd mix of feelings that always tumbled through Joseph when it came to Jac, jealousy that she had not called him while she was in trouble and guilt because maybe she had not felt able to call him. He was the one to encourage her to open up to her mother and he had been the one too busy sparing with his soon to be ex wife to even notice she was in trouble.

"I knew the wound was in danger of infection and she missed an appointment. So she called me, the damn pigheaded woman called me while trying to drain the abscess herself at the roadside." There was a mixture of disbelief and awe in Michael's gaze as he seemed to relive the experience.

"She always was one to surprise you." Jac terrified him more often that he would like. Joseph smiled grimly trying to imagine the pain she must have been put herself through, both impressed by her strength and frustrated by her tenacity. He imagines how alone she must have felt and wonders why he just can't stop caring for a woman who could not save herself.

"Why an earth would she put herself in so much danger?" He wondered out loud already guessing half the answer. Jac was all about self-preservation and yet she had almost died.

Michael looked a little uncomfortable, his gaze falling on Jac as if he wanted to ask permission. There was a new understanding in his eyes, a softness that was close to pity. Joseph was glad she was not awake to see it.

"Her mother is a nasty piece of work. Jac risked her own life for someone who just manipulated and used her."

The guilt rose like bile and Joseph swallowed against it.

"She didn't say that much but it looks like the woman abandoned her at twelve and had started again with a new kid. And let's not forget her actually making the ice queen care only to literally take a piece of her and leave again." There was obvious disgust in Michael's voice. No matter what mistakes he continued to make no one could doubt his dedication to his children. The idea of using them was imaginable to him. He had never found Jac the unfeeling monster others made her out to be. She was an abrasive, ambitious woman but so were a lot of surgeons. And learning about her past, seeing it first hand he suddenly realised it was little wonder she was brittle, self-contained, complicated woman.

"Oh" There were no words Joseph could really say and for once he did not mind being reduced to a stuttering idiot so much. He remembered a particularly vicious time in his relationship with Jac, how he had mocked her and her background, told her that no one had or would ever want her because he needed to hurt her as much as she had hurt him. It frightened him how right he had been. And maybe his words had hurt more than the time he hit her.

"I've never seen her be so human; she practically collapsed into my arms in tears and agony." Joseph cringed, no matter what cruel things he had wished upon her he never quite had the stomach for this.

"I think she has spent a life time trying to become indestructible." Jac had hurt him because it was all she knew how to do; to her it had been a race to see who could do it first. Her mother had done nothing but reinforce her behaviour.

"Do you want to stay with her? I didn't want to leave her when she only managed to tell me to leave the once." She would never be able to ask for comfort but Michael saw the relief in her tired eyes as he sat with her while she slowly drifted into sleep.

Joseph smiled softly and considered for a moment even if he already knew the answer. "No I don't think that would be for the best. But thank you for looking out for her."

It would be too soon for both of them. They had managed tentative interaction and sometimes something even a little deeper but it was always fleeting, always new. He was not ready to try and be her knight in shining armour and he understood that if Jac woke to find him by his bedside it would only have a negative effect. She would able to hold her defences together around their colleague. She would never want to be that exposed around him, not when he could hurt her as much as her supposed family could.

Surprise flashed over Michael's features but he did not question the decision. Instead he shrugged and sat back down. "What is with the constant brooding tension between you two?" It wasn't really a question and he knew Joseph would never answer.

"She's being discharged in the morning?" Joseph asked and received a nod of confirmation in response. She would go back to slowly recover in her empty little flat. Perhaps it was not the healthiest option but he doubted she would have it any other way.

He turned to leave but stopped with an impulsive thought. "Oh I assume you had to leave her car somewhere. If you have the address I will get it picked up. One thing less for her to worry about."

"Sure." Michael agreed quickly, clearly exhausted himself.

"And if you wouldn't mind don't tell her I was here." Joseph asked carefully, not quite sure in his own reasons.

Michael regarded him strangely like he would argue if he had more energy. "Fine whatever you want. Seems like all I'm good for today." He mock grumbled as Joseph left quieter than her arrived. Jac slept on peacefully.


	3. Chapter 3

The relief she felt as the front door finally clicked softly shut was short lived. Almost instantly the flat settled into a silence that was unnatural after sharing a living space over the past few weeks.

Wearily Jac leant her head back against the door and tried to breathe through her sudden anxiety. The whole way home was the same as her entire hospital stay. She had wished to be left alone to process what ever it was that she was feeling.

She did not enjoy being the patient, the revealing gown, the harsh lights all made her feel as if she was held under constant observation, like her every flaw was visible under the pale stretch of her skin.

Even with only the taxi driver watching as discreetly as he could manage through the rear view mirror. She spent the entire journey avoiding his too small pale eyes, putting all her energy into glaring stubbornly at the back of the podgy mans chair. Silently daring him to ask any more questions after 'So what happened to you love?' went unanswered.

Michael had offered to take her home just once. She was glad he had not tried again, the notion made her cheeks warm with humiliation. She already felt weak enough and he had done so much already. Besides she had noticed the way he kept glancing at his phone, missed calls and messages from the hospital, from his family, people he had neglected because of her.

When she had woken from her restless sleep, sedatives finally wearing off so that the protection she felt at her colleague spending the night by her side quickly turned from a comfort to irritation. She was not the type of woman who wanted or needed a saviour so she had firmly declined his offer, quickly replacing her emotional walls before he could get even closer than he already was.

And there was a brief flash of relief in expressively dark eyes before it could be hidden. Maybe he just as uncomfortable with the ice queen falling apart just as much as she was of falling. He knew her well enough that he would not be able to change her mind so had rolled his eyes and called her by her surname. The pattern of fast shooting sarcasm was distancing and familiar enough that she was finally able to relax her tired muscles against the overly soft hospital bed.

Michael had organised a taxi to take her home and told her to call if she needed anything even though he knew she would never dream of doing such a thing. He had said her car had already been returned to its normal space outside the block of flats. She had not asked how he had managed to organise it but was grateful for one less thing to worry about. Then there was the tedious process of being discharged. The information she already knew because she had said it herself to more patients than she could count and the disproving looks when she had to tell them she lived alone, that there was no one to look after her.

Now she was finally alone safely inside the walls of a place that she had never really called her home in any way besides being the place where she lived. Only know she wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere, because alone there was no reason to pretend she was fine. And without motivation she was just too tired to protect herself from the maelstrom that stormed inside.

Every emotion conflicted with another, every part of her hurt from the bitter sense of betrayal to the dull thumping behind her eyes and the sharpest burning of the delicate wound in her side. She was just so damn tired. Too far gone to pick any emotion out of the tide.

Suddenly she felt her stomach plummet as she swallowed the urge to vomit. She would be stronger than this; she did not know how to do anything else. She would not start to panic and fall apart when really nothing had ever changed. She had always been alone and yet part of her still half expected to see her mother pad bare footed through the kitchen and ask where she had been.

She only had her mother back for a few weeks and yet it was enough, enough to make her hope again enough that emptiness felt foreign and sharply constant. She hated herself for believing so easily. Life had done nothing but teach her how foolish it was to trust, to love.

Exhausted she limped further into the flat shedding her jacket as she slowly reached into the fridge for a cool bottle of water to wash the dry acidic taste from her mouth. If she could summon the energy she would have showered. The cold sweats, an infected wound and a night in the hospital left her feeling worn and polluted. She had to wear her clothes from the previous day home. Her t-shirt had been ruined; she had tried not to grimace at the state of the flimsy grey fabric. The scrub top she had been given as a replacement was a salmon colour that did not compliment her ashen complexion.

There was nothing she could do. No way to salvage the situation or understand it especially with the fatigued numbness turning everything into an insufferable constant pain. She just needed to sleep and hope that by the time she woke she would heal enough to put herself back together.

She moved to her bedroom without realising only to freeze in the doorway. The sheets were still ruffled, the room was not her own anymore. She sat timidly on the bed almost afraid as the mattress shifted slightly against her weight and tried not to shake. Unconsciously she picked up a pillow and hugged it close in an attempt to draw some comfort.

A shaky laugh escaped her throat as her vision blurred with silent, swollen tears. It smelt of her, like her mothers perfume. The same sent that used to tickle her nose when her mother had leaned over and kissed her goodnight before she had left the first time. Only now it did nothing to placate her, it was just another reminder of everything she had lost.

And she was so tired; too tired to even contemplate changing she sheets. She just needed this nightmare to be over as soon as possible. Throwing the pillow to the floor Jac pulled her mobile from her trouser pocket toying with the small device with no idea who she planned on calling. Michael wasn't as option, not really. There was only one person she wanted with her but she had destroyed their relationship such a long time ago. And Joseph had already had done so much. The way he had listened and advised meant more than she knew how to say. She had no right to put this upon him, she did not even know how.

Besides she had to get used to being alone again.

She left her mobile on the corner of the bed, silently promising herself that when she felt stronger she would make the place hers again and clean away any traces of the other woman.

With a new resolve she wiped the salty wetness away from her face with the back of her hands. She was just so tired. Walking back into the stillness of her living room she sat on her sofa, gasping in pain as she bent down to take off her shoes.

Later she would try and comprehend all that had happened but not when she was struggling just to keep her eyes open. Lying back slowly with a hand against the wad of bandages that covered her side careful not to pull any stitches, she shivered against the coolness of the air and waited for sleep to take her away from the world.


End file.
